


morning after

by TrasBen



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Angst, Apocalypse, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Major character death - Freeform, Use your imagination, can be read as shipping or platonic, once again, please dont read if youre sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28161813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrasBen/pseuds/TrasBen
Summary: south, always south.it's a cold winter morning and papyrus has some things to take care of before he can get started with the day.
Relationships: Papyrus & Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	morning after

**Author's Note:**

> song for vibes: [exit music (for a film) - radiohead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf01riuiJWA)

Papyrus had fallen asleep to the press of cold bones against his own. Cold, chalky bones. He’d pressed a kiss to his brother’s head just the night before, only to taste grit on his tongue in the final moments before sleep took him.

He swears he can taste it now, still bundled up in their only, threadbare blanket. 

In a weak attempt to stave off the cold as best he could, Papyrus had draped it over the both of them before holding Sans tightly to his chest. He’d thought that maybe it would make a difference against the even harder and colder concrete ground they’re laying on.

Looking down on Sans, pale-faced and hardly breathing, Papyrus knows it was nothing more than a fantasy. Some sort of wishful thinking courtesy of that small part of him that remembers the first time he’d seen the sun and the stars.

Still, when Papyrus lifts himself up from the floor of the small room he’s managed to secure, he leaves the blanket covering Sans. 

(Standing only reminds Papyrus of how small his older brother is, how delicate.)

The room is also small, but it’s made infinitely larger by the lack of furniture.

Some sort of internal fire had probably wasted away the carpeting and the paint on the walls years ago, leaving behind only the sturdy remains of an old brick house. Sealing the empty doorway is the only surviving furniture, a tall dresser with no drawers. The only light in the room comes from the singular window, broken in, letting in the cold draft of a late fall morning.

Papyrus doesn’t mind. It makes things more simple for him. More space to lay out the meager contents of his backpack, to take stock.

He likes the emptiness, he thinks. When he pours some water over a rag and cleans his visible bones, he doesn’t worry about making a mess. When he pulls out a cold can of peaches from his bag and eats it slowly, he has room to stretch his long legs. It feels, these last few days, like he has been cramped into a very small space with no way to relieve the burning tension in his bones.

When he lifts the blankets from Sans’ still body, he folds it neatly and compactly.

Sans is in the same position Papyrus had left him in yesterday. Laying on his back, arms resting on his middle. His face is placid, smooth. He looks so much younger like this, not at all like the serious monster that had practically raised Papyrus.

Red eye lights that used to flash with emotion, a sharp grin that used to grow with mirth and fall slack with contentment.

Sans’ rib cage hardly even moves anymore.

He’s unbothered by the world, like a skeleton is unbothered by the cold.

It’s cold now. 

Papyrus thinks it must be nearing December, surely. The first snow had come in a week ago, when Sans was still up and fighting. Metaphorically, of course. There’s not much to fight these days.

The chill has little effect on Papyrus, although he worries for Sans in his condition. 

(If Sans was awake, he’d probably try to smack or otherwise knock some sense into Papyrus for _worrying_ about him. He’d tell Papyrus to _worry_ for himself, the storm looks like it might close in after a few days. He’d tell Papyrus that Big Boy Monsters didn’t need anybody to worry after them. Dead things don’t need anybody to worry after them.)

Falling Down happens slowly, but it’s a sure process. It had started with the shivering, after all. Sans had waved Papyrus off with some grumbles when he pointed it out only less than a week ago. He’d only curled in closer to their little fire and looked off to the side, bones still faintly rattling.

Next was the sleeping.

Sans has always been an avid sleeper, but his rests became longer. He became harder to rouse when it was time to move.

Until….

Well. Until three days ago, when he’d stopped waking up at all.

Dutifully, Papyrus had continued moving them. South, away from the ash and the cold and the storm.

Since then Sans has stopped breathing as deeply. His furrowed brows smoothed over until there wasn’t a single expression on his sleeping face, and it became apparent that he was no longer sleeping at all.

Last night, Papyrus had secured them a room in a mostly-intact building, only to find dust on Sans’ beloved jacket when he checked on the elder skeleton.

Which leads to now, with Papyrus idly going about his usual morning routine. That same tension fizzles in his bones, as if he’s waiting for something he doesn’t know yet. 

When all is finished, Papyrus sits by his brother’s side and pulls him into his lap. He pets over Sans’ skull and shakes off the residual dust that follows his movements. He pretends he doesn’t see it, he pretends it’s nothing more significant than a cat shedding fur.

Papyrus knows it won’t be long until it’s over. He’s at somewhat of a loss, staring at Sans’ smooth face.

He’s not received very much comfort in his life. He only remembers the hugs he received as a child, gentle touches and soft words. Of course, the only one to even have offered that much to him had always been Sans.

Sans, comforting him on dark nights. Sans, tending to his injuries. Sans, sleeping by him to keep warm.

Sans always had the voice for reading stories, low and slow enough to follow along no matter how tired one was. 

Hesitantly, Papyrus chokes on his own voice as he speaks for the first time in days.

“In A Forest, Where It Was Always Sunny, Lived A Very Happy And Very _Hoppy_ Bunny…” Papyrus recites, familiar words coming to him easy. Sans hadn’t read to him in many, many years, but the words are there for him to take at the front of his mind. “The Fluffiest Bunny That Did Ever Live, With So Much Love In His Heart To Give.”

Papyrus doesn’t even get to finish the story before Sans’ entire left arm dusts, all at once. He nearly throws Sans off of his lap when it happens, one of Sans’ entire sleeves getting filled with chalky substance and falling limply.

Instead, Papyrus collects himself with a few breaths before moving. Gently, more gently than Papyrus has ever done anything in his entire life, he settles Sans on the ground in front of him and continues. And, if his voice is a little shakier, that’s no difference to his audience.

(Papyrus tries, desperately, not to think about how Sans had always rejected gentle treatment despite offering all of the soft parts of himself up to others to be sharpened and hardened.)

Little by little, Sans turns to dust before Papyrus’ eyes and Papyrus does nothing except for keep talking.

Eventually, that smooth face begins to cave in, first at the nasal ridge and then at the eye sockets. It looks like a sand castle falling apart, sinking in before collapsing completely. Unlike sand, though, Sans’ skull sends a plume of dust into the air as it settles.

Atop the pile that used to be Papyrus’ brother is a single, golden tooth.

Papyrus ignores it in favor of putting his head in his hands and breathing.

Humans often say that before one dies, their life “flashes” before their eyes, a complete reenactment of their actions and thoughts before leaving.

Watching Sans die, Papyrus feels very much of the same happen to him. He remembers before Sans had bought them the house in Snowdin, surviving as best they could in the dump along with all the other orphans and rejects. He remembers those first tumultuous years in Snowdin. He remembers Sans falling into a sluggish routine as those years came and went. He remembers the last time he had hugged Sans, for real.

It had been months ago, after this hell had first started. And Papyrus hadn’t thought to ask for another one, to _take_ one, even as he saw Sans degrade before him.

So Papyrus settles for remembering what it had been like to hold Sans, his brother’s small and sturdy frame. The jacket that added the illusion of mass, the smell of mustard and smoke and something musky.

Without looking, Papyrus reaches out to root around in the pocket of the jacket that used to clothe Sans, and pulls out a familiar and worn stiff paper box. 

It rattles around with only three or four things inside it.

It smells like smoke and something else that is just distinctly _Sans_. Papyrus cradles it close to his face and inhales deeply. The memory becomes more vivid, and if Papyrus focuses, he almost believes he can hear Sans’ quiet breathing next to his acoustic meatus.

Papyrus thumbs the top of the box open to pull out a cigarette. There’s a lighter in his backpack, but he just puts the cigarette right back and slips the box into his own pocket before starting the arduous task of cleaning up.

He folds Sans’ clothes up just as neatly as he had with the blanket, and stores them with it as well, quickly grabbing the lighter before zipping the bag up. Finally, he takes up Sans’ tooth and shines it on his scarf before pocketing that as well.

With nothing left to do, Papyrus scoops up as much of his brother's dust as he can in that beaten up old black jacket and carries it over to the window.

It’s surreal. Many times, Papyrus has had to clean up the dust of others. He’d never fully internalized that every speck of dust he wiped off his clothes used to be a monster. Not like he realizes with Sans. Every wasted grain on the floor is a part of his brother. It could have been a phalanx or a rib or part of his smile, and it’s on the ground.

...

There’s no sound of birds outside. Only wind and the sound of buildings creaking in the distance. He leans up against the window seal and watches the sun climb higher in the sky for a bit. It looks tiny, and it provides little heat.

It’s nothing like the sun Papyrus remembers. But nothing is familiar these days.

Still cradling the jacket of dust to his chest, Papyrus reaches one hand back to procure the box of cigarettes and maneuvers one back into his hand. With a great sigh, Papyrus slips it between his teeth before dumping the dust over the edge of the window, beating the jacket like one would a dirty carpet.

Wild wind takes it, whips it past buildings and up and above. The bit that falls onto the ground mixes with white ashes that coat the streets like snow. Papyrus uses his newly freed hand to grab the lighter he’d gotten from his backpack while putting things away and lights the cigarette.

He leans up against the window and watches the last specks of dust disappear between plumes of smoke.

There isn’t much of anything in Papyrus’ head during that stretch of time. Only silence and numb observation.

It only takes a few minutes for him to burn out the cigarette, so he stomps it underneath his feet and drags Sans’ jacket over his face like he would a cleansing rag. But instead of cleaning him, he only rubs his skull in the dust that had clung to the fabric stubbornly and basks in the last, spiteful bits of his brother that are left.

With nothing left to keep him there, Papyrus grabs his things and starts climbing down the building from the window, bracing himself against the same wind that had carried his brother away only minutes ago. 

The chill stabs through his clothes like a knife, an offer to take him up and away with Sans. He’d be a fool to take the wind up on that offer, Papyrus doesn’t need Sans to tell him _that._ But it doesn’t stop the dull throb of a distant longing welling up.

Ash crunches and crumbles underneath his feet as he walks. 

South, always south.

**Author's Note:**

> QwQ
> 
> ever just........ make yourself so incredibly sad with an idea???? that was me 4 hours ago when i got this idea and then sat down to write it/edit it all at once so.
> 
> uhhh
> 
> have a nice day!! and leave a comment if you enjoyed or wanna chat!!


End file.
